An appli-able Moment (aka, “Are you kidding me?”)

6 major appliances live in our house, as I imagine just like yours.

Washer gives up its life, after 16 noble years and just one repair.  Neptune Magic!  A simple day’s jaunt costs us only $900 for a coolio Maytag that sanitizes stuff.  Gotta love the various discounts strewn at our feet!

3 weeks later, the oven goes whacker doodles and pizzas don’t cook right.  Well, we can roll with those changes with an oven thermometer and by re-calibrating the temperature, right?

Bam!  Saturday the refrigerator just dies.  What?!  At five years of age?  Are you hosing me?  Don’t you feel the love of my bi-monthly cleanings?  What do you want, a buffing of your stainless steel ego?  Here’s $134 greenbacks to light up your life and cool my eats.  Happy?!

The nuker, dryer and dishwasher now watch, in an eerily explosive Crimean peninsular way.  What will happen next door?  Is it our turn to bolt?  Will our secession be violent, or will it be like Scotland, who keeps Sean Connery in perpetuity (but has no decent football club)?  Does The Master mean to get rid of us too? 

Damn straight.  Have daughter.  With hands.  Let’s go old school and get out that dish rag, Social Services’ human rights complaint be damned … “Soap on, soap off.  Rinse and repeat…”

What inspires us?

Is it wealth?  I don’t think that one works.  Paying ahead on your mortgage, 13 months/year instead of 12, works fine only if you have liquidity and life doesn't happen while you’re planning it.  Credit card companies don’t give you squat unless I guess you argue with the lender to get relief from the endless interest.  So, it’s not just wealth, eh?

Is it drama?  As a reformed drama queen, I’ll say Maybe/Yes.   But what’s up with the Nancy Kerrigan ~ Tonya Harding replays?!  Did you know the sole videographer at that year’s US National Championships was the guy who captured that footage?  I wasn't surprised to hear the media company has earned millions of dollars on that sad footage.  But, was it worth:

$250 per second ?

$250 ??

Are you flip***’ing nuts?!?!  That doesn't inspire me, so it gets a resounding No.

Is it our paychecks?  As a supposedly overpaid Federal employee (don’t EVEN get me started on that crap), it takes me a day  to net that much moohlah.  And, too many of our I-struggle-to-feed-my-family friends earn less and deserve far more.  That disparity saddens me and lessens the American dream, undermines our vision of Christian compassion, and I think finally debunks the myth of American Exceptionalism. 

Back to the question of inspiration:  Look, I’m not railing at what we do to improve ourselves, but how much human wreckage at the roadside, my friends?  Does the inspiration to chase the easy money inevitably leave others behind?  Not to be a downer, but the question hangs out there.